Our Staff

We have four staff members here at Empty Arms: Carol McMurrich, Lisa Hamilton, Veronica Lee, and Greta Kohl. Our team cranks out the work of Empty Arms, with the support and dedication of this entire team you see below! Running this organization is a labor of love and all of us extract a huge amount of personal satisfaction from the amazing relationships we build every day doing this work.

Carol McMurrich (she/her/hers) is our our founder and director. She heads up the programming and people-organizing for Empty Arms. Carol is our educator, she conducts all of the professional trainings we provide to healthcare providers, our peer companions, and our support group facilitators. She currently facilitates our Stillbirth and Infant Loss Support Group, and the Parenting After Loss Support Group. After the birth and death of her first daughter, Charlotte, Carol has welcomed four healthy children and relishes being a present and active mother to them. Read more about Carol here.

Carol can be reached at carol@emptyarmsbereavement.org

Lisa Hamilton (she/her/hers)is our project manager who helps to keep all of our projects on a timely schedule and assists Carol in all the day-to-day functions of carrying out our program goals. Lisa also keeps track of our income and expenses, facilitates our Twin Loss Support Group (while parenting a surviving twin or multiples), and is a Peer Companion. Lisa has experienced two pregnancy losses. One, a baby girl, Hannah, a miscarriage in her second trimester, and the other the loss of a Lucy, twin baby girl while pregnant for the fifth time, the surviving twin would go on to become her third living son.

Lisa can be reached at lisa@emptyarmsbereavement.org

Veronica Lee (she/her/hers) is the Development & Operations Manager for our organization. She is the force behind our fundraising campaigns, communications plans, and events. Veronica manages a detailed donor database and supports the sustainability of funding for Empty Arms so we can continue to serve our community at no cost to families.

Veronica can be reached at veronica@emptyarmsbereavement.org




Our Peer Companions

Our Bilingual Peer Companions

Our Group Facilitators 

Our Board

Empty Arms is governed by a working board of eight to ten members, all of whom are totally committed to the work that we do. Every board member has a deep personal connection to pregnancy or infant loss, either through personal experience or professionally. We're so grateful to have this amazing team to help us make decisions, to fundraise, and plan for the future of this organization.

Our officers

  • Chris Overtree, PhD: Board President, Child Psychologist, UMass faculty, Amherst MA

  • Adam Baker: Board Treasurer, Vice President & Commercial Loan Officer at Greenfield Cooperative Bank

Our Directors 

  • Brenda L. Solivan: Bereaved Parent, LICSW

  • Jesus Acosta

  • Jillian Atstupenas: Bereaved parent, Peer Facilitator, Compliance Attorney

  • Kate Lande Schmeiser, Ph.D.: Professor of Economics, Mount Holyoke College

  • Katie Barker

  • Lindsey Rothschild: Bereaved Parent, City Councilor City of Easthampton, Real Estate Agent

  • Melissa Mills-Dick